Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 8:42pm
Hi, partner and I live in Urcal !! We love it here. We're on the bottom bit of villas split by the road thru, by the tall street lights and mail boxes.
We drove partners car down from Saffron Walden Essex via an overnite in Portsmouth, our Porrsmouth-Bilbao ferry was the slower of the two and only docked around 2 pm, to break up the journey down to Urcal we arranged an Air BnB in Madrid and wished we'd have booked 2 nites in order to check out Madrid in the day.
We got into Madrid after dark, slept great, woke up to inclement weather, the further south we came the wetter and murkier it got, took us roughly 5 or so hours to do the journey, motorways are great with not that much traffic anywhere, max speed limits 120 kmph which is roughly 75mph. There are lots of places you can get petrol/diesel and something to eat and drink on the trip down.
If you need to you can make an excursion to Ikea just off the motorway at Murcia, theres also a newish shopping mall, Leroy Merlin DIY warehouse, Mc Donalds, KFC, Burger King as well as more traditionally Spanish rest stops.
In Lorca theres another group of shops/stores including Carrefour supermarkets, Media Markt for most everything electrical, a huge Asia store, (if they dont stock it you probably dont need it but beware sometimes dodgy electricals), C and A, yes remember them ? Lol, there's a great open air market on Thursdays too.
As you come further down you'll notice how green and fertile it is. Another open air market is at Puerto Lumbreras on Fridays with a great value Bodega where you can get an excellent range of wines from huge barrels, you'd be hard pressed to find "bad" wine here even as cheap as it can get. Try 2 litres of very good wine for around €3.20 lol. Red as well as white.
The ramp for Urcal as you might well know splits between Urcal and Los Norias, nice bar there we call the B2, come right and follow your nose 7 minutes and your "home". Check out the bar, closed Mondays, darts nite Thursdays lol.
There's free Spanish lessons in Huercal Overa, best to register in September for new courses but there's other one to one classes at a place called The Hub up by Voss homes and Lidl.
Apologies if I've duplicated anything you already know of, the village is a nice mix of friendly ex-pats and Spanish and you should settle into the peace and tranquility in no time.
Anything you still need advice on just ask away.
My names Jim, partners name is Ann